Interactive: Calgary tops the MoneySense ranking of Canadian cities

Victoria remains a retirees hot spot

MoneySense.ca has released their annual list of the best places in Canada to live, and the results are anything but surprising.

Thinking of retiring? Head to Victoria. Immigrating to Canada? Southern Ontario will suit you best. The best mid-sized cities are in B.C. and Western Alberta, and the greatest places to raise kids are in subdued communities that rarely see much action.

But overall, there was some movement in the list from last year. Calgary took the top spot away from Ottawa, and even took top marks for the best place in the country to raise kids.

“Of course, statistics don’t capture the personality, scenery or people that make each place special, but they provide a good idea of what life would be like if you lived there,” the website notes.

Overall, Toronto, Calgary, Burlington and Sannich took the top spots for most mentions, with three cateogries each.

Take a look at our interactive map, select the category from the pull-down menu, and see if your city made the list (note: this interactive seems to be having issues with Chrome browsers. If it doesn’t work, try it in Firefox).

Legend: Pins are coloured according to ranking in the category. Big green pins are first then, in descending order, blue, purple, yellow, red. Then, in smaller points for rankings below 7, purple, blue, yellow and red.